Next summer has to be different from Celtic. Change must start now.

Earlier today I put up a piece arguing that Celtic now has an opportunity to modernise its structure by appointing a director of football. Done properly, and done in time for next season, that change would stop the problems we face right now from spilling into the next campaign.

For some members of this board, however, it is already too late. Michael Nicholson cannot survive this season and remain in his job. He has failed on every level and he has to go.

That does not mean the club cannot still act in the here and now to make next season easier than this one has been.

The first step is obvious. Celtic must identify the next managerial candidate and make sure he is signed, sealed and delivered before the summer transfer window even opens. Alongside that, the club must appoint a director of football with a clear remit to work directly with the manager on his needs and requirements. Without that partnership, we are going nowhere.

Today, Martin O’Neill sat in front of the media and admitted that he rejected a number of players offered to him. Why did he turn them down?

The answer seems obvious. Those players offered him nothing. They were either project signings he has no interest in or players who simply do not fit his requirements. If he needs a striker and someone offers him a goalkeeper or a defender, that does not help him. He will have made that clear.

He also confirmed that Celtic targeted some players because they suited the previous manager’s system. Under normal circumstances, you might accept that explanation and move on.

But we already analysed those players on this site. At least one of them, the right-sided attacking winger now heading to Sunderland, would not have fitted Wilfried Nancy’s tactical approach at all. So why did anyone target him for a Wilfried Nancy team in the first place?

Once again, it looks as if people are simply doing their own thing. O’Neill, at least, wants to impose structure. He wants a system where the club signs players only when they serve the manager’s needs in the here and now.

I understand that approach takes time, time we do not really have. It also forces him to place a great deal of trust in those above him to get deals done. But he has at least identified the core problem and is trying to fix it. Players must fit his system.

The fact that people still offer him players originally targeted for Nancy’s system is absurd. It is just as absurd as the suggestion that Nancy himself received players selected to fit Brendan Rodgers’ old system.

I wrote last week about fighting the last war, about our habit of trying to solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions. If you solve yesterday’s problems at the time, you do not need to revisit them later. Celtic refuses to do that. Instead, it continues to act as if old solutions still apply to today’s reality, even when they clearly do not. The club prefers quick fixes to real solutions.

That mindset offers yet more proof of a complete lack of joined-up thinking.

Supporters’ organisations that have met the club periodically over the past couple of years have repeatedly asked the same basic question. Who actually picks the players? Not who signs them. Not who coaches them. Who decides which options go in front of the manager and his staff? How does that process work? On what basis do scouts identify players? Who scouts them? When? And according to what criteria?

One of the clearest problems we have faced, and we have seen it in two of the last three summer windows, is that the club keeps completing deals that offer no benefit to the manager. By extension, they offer no benefit to Celtic.

So what purpose do those signings serve? Whose agenda do they advance? You almost start to wonder whether someone somewhere pursues interests other than Celtic’s. I am not making allegations, but the question arises naturally. If these deals do not benefit the club, then who do they benefit?

I cannot say this often enough. Our directors are financiers and lawyers. They are not football people.

They do not have the knowledge, experience or qualifications to make footballing judgments. These people do not know how to structure squad building in football terms. They do not know which profiles work or what systems demand.

They should not involve themselves in those decisions. Part of the problem is that too many of them believe they know more than they do. The second-guessing of managers at Celtic is nothing new.

This has been an incredibly frustrating first two weeks of the window, and the next two have to be better. We play Hearts at Tynecastle at the end of next week. If we fail to show up for business there, the title race is over.

We also travel to Bologna in the midweek beforehand. O’Neill already has to juggle priorities. Anyone can see the risk we take by heading into those games with the squad we currently have.

If we do not win at Tynecastle, all hell will break loose, and rightly so. At this moment in time, nobody in their right mind would bet on us getting that result.